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Which is better for a home media server: zfs or btrfs or LVM/md?

rated 0 times [ 10] [ 0] / answers: 1 / hits: 30502 / 2 Years ago, sun, november 28, 2021, 12:53:07

I'm looking at building a new home server and would like a flexible filesystem. Both btrfs and zfs are interesting. I want to be able to do soft raid and have flexible solution allowing me to expand storage easily as I add hard drives. Not interested in hardware raid due to cost. Since this is a non-essential server, I'm willing to play around and take some risks. This media server will be available over the Internet for remote playback. Most likely will run Plex Media Server software. I'm thinking of running Ubuntu 12.04 since some of the software I want to use seems only supported on the LTS.

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strhen

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1 Year ago

answered 2 Years ago ronicod · Accepted Answer

I am currently using btrfs, having used zfs in the past. zfs is quite memory hungry and isn't "linux-native", so if you're happy with a newer / less proven filesystem I recommend btrfs.

If you do go btrfs on Ubuntu LTS I recommend holding out for 14.04 since the recent kernels have a lot of btrfs updates.

A more traditional system would involve LVM + md software raid, this is a tried and tested solution that can give you the expandable storage, software raid, snapshots, etc etc but is not as "cool" as the newer filesystems and misses some features (like checksumming / COW).